Martha’s Chapel – an ultra-short story by Andrew Jackson

Martha was devoted to her husband Jack, aircraft pilot and minister of the Houston branch of the Church of the Credulous Brethren. After four short, blissfully happy years of marriage, God ‘called’ Martha to him and she died after just ten days. Her deathbed promise was to get in touch with Jack somehow. She kept her word.

She told him she’d built a church in the sky: ‘Martha’s Chapel’ and invited everyone to come and pray there. A month later, a happy and excited band of true believers packed into Jack’s private jet for the journey of a lifetime. They were off to Europe to see Le Crazy Horse show in Paris with a special stopover at Martha’s Chapel.

At 35,000 ft, about mid-way across the Atlantic ocean, they could all see the brilliant white stone chapel through the portside windows. Jack brought the plane to a halt, cut the engines and opened the door. Everyone except co-pilot Chuck Johnson, streamed out of the plane and across the short path to the chapel door. It was truly beautiful inside and soon everyone was kneeling down listening to minister Jack’s moving words of thanks for God’s miracle.

When six-year-old Isobel woke up she was horrified to see her ma and pa and all their friends kneeling in mid-air with their hands clasped and their eyes closed. She looked down and saw nothing but clear air all the way down to the ocean blue. She screamed and tried to ‘run’ back to the plane, but there was nothing on which to run. She plummeted down, arms flailing, followed quickly by every single one of the Credulous Brethren. Chuck watched in horror as his friends fell to Earth.

He restarted the plane and found himself wondering how he was going to explain the loss of all 27 passengers.

Al Capone by Andrew Jackson

‘Martha’s Chapel’ is one of the stories from Bohemian author Andrew Jackson’s collection of ultra-short stories, Al Capone.